Our phone got yoinked the other day. We were at a bar and the
phone was on the table we were standing next to. Blink and the phone was
gone. We're not so much mad as perplexed. We have a shitty phone. Not
even a camera on it. It can't download good ringtones. It just calls people.
So it's not as if you're going to get a lot of money for it.

Secondly, do you really not have your own phone? We managed to get one
when we were unemployed some years ago, so whatever your excuse is blows.
We have insurance, so we had to go all the way down under the Williamsburg
bridge to file a lost property report with a cop at the 7th precinct.
The cop, a nice enough guy, managed to lose the paperwork, so now we have
to go back. All to file an insurance claim for a not-so-special phone.

Lucky for us, we never throw anything away so we just reactivated our
old clunky phone in the meantime. You want to steal that one, too? It's
even shittier, so you might like it -- it doesn't even flip.

Ten legally acquired reviews this week. Please join in the rantathon
by using the phone at right. You'll feel so much better.

-- BT

The Black Table
needs your help! Every week, we need reviews of the latest media-related
crud, new products from Capitalists and odd idea, concept or trend. All
you need to have is a sharp opinion that you can distill down to one paragraph
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Before you submit anything, ask
yourself the following: Have I put a grade on my review? Have I read
this thing at least once? Will anyone care what I wrote? If the answer
is NO to any of those questions, break down and cry, knowing you're
a failure who can't do anything right. You stupid face head moron!

WINGMAN TO A CHICK: I was excited when she called up and asked
if we could hang out, allowing myself to think, perhaps crazily, that
she actually wanted to hang out with me. I got my first sinking feeling
when I found myself a little while later playing bodyguard in the kitchen
of a strange drug dealer while she scored a bag of dope. He kept pushing
drinks on me (to weaken my defenses if things got hairy?) and watching
me out of the corners of his eyes while he tried to look up her skirt.
But then maybe she was buying the bag so we could get lit and screw like
a couple of rabbit junkies. No such luck. As we left the crack den, she
said, 'oh, my old boyfriend lives in this neighborhood. Maybe he's at
such and such bar.' So that's where we went to look for this guy and that's
when I realized I was playing wingman to a chick. F --Bobbi
Gula

DUMB SISTER: Until a few days ago, my younger sister was doing
much better than me. I can barely afford rent and food and my last sexual
encounter was six months ago with an exboyfriend I broke up with at least
twice in the course of our four-year relationship. On the other hand,
my sister was practically engaged, had a big pay check, and lived near
the beach in a big city. But she recently broke up with her guy for not
giving her a ring. Even so, I still believed she

was doing better than me until she commented that the ass hat she dated
in high school is possibly her soul mate and she might want to marry him
someday. But to me, he's still the weirdo who threw rocks at her window,
doesn't have a fulltime job or college degree six years after graduation,
and still makes my skin to crawl when I see his name on caller ID. Doing
better than your sister even though you're still poor and single (for
real this time): B+ --R

THE POST-COLLEGIATE TOGA PARTY: I paced the house nervously at
10 on a Saturday night, waiting for my guests, and my housemates' guests,
to arrive. The straps on my hot silver sandals cut my feet, and any movement
threatened the integrity of the five yards of fabric wound around my body.
I was filled with dread that no one else was going to show up in a toga.
And you know what? They didn't. But when I made my entrance, everyone
in the room froze, and looked at me, and told me I looked beautiful. And
they assumed, by my stylish attire (seriously, the only thing between
me and nudity was three safety pins), that I was some kind of toga savant,
so one by one they led me away from the party for toga help. Do you know
what that means? I got to see, like, 5 people naked even before I had
my first drink. The night was a little cold, but we huddled around the
tiki torches on the balcony, drank a quarter keg, and had a ridiculously
good time. Plus, I got laid. A+ -- J
Ritterbusch

WORKING WITH THE EX: It had been four years, since I decided I
couldn't walk up the wooden stairway to your apartment one more time.
But since you took a job with a company my company does work for, it was
only a matter of time until our lives would cross again. So what did you
tell your co-workers about us? Did you tell them about the frightening
amounts of vodka we drank? The long rails of amphetamines we snorted up
our noses? The asphyxiation, bondage, biting and spanking we called our
sex lives? Having the uncomfortable feeling of working with your ex: F.
Knowing you have as much dirt on her as she has on you: A -- Tony
G

YOUR NEEDLESSLY COMPLICATED FOUNTAIN SODA TECHNIQUES: I know,
I know. If you add too much ice it'll get watered down, but if you don't
add enough it won't be cold enough. Life is hard, little guy, but let's
face it -- you're all grown up now. You're in your 30s and you've done
this soda fountain thing many, many times before. You look like a pretty
successful guy-nice suit, clean fingernails, wearing shoes-so why is it
taking you so long to find the perfect amount of ice for your Diet Pepsi?
Okay, good. You got it. Wait-what the hell are you doing now? Why are
you just standing there, looking around? Oh. I get it-you're waiting for
the fizz to go down so you can top it off. Do you really think you're
gonna be thirsty if you don't get it filled all the way to the top? It's
a 32 ounce cup. I bet you're one of those people who asks for "easy ice"
at restaurants so you can get more. Don't you even care that it's gonna
be warm?! I bet you think of yourself as a "good consumer." I think of
you as an "asshole." Waiting behind some douche bag in the soda line:
D- Taking forever when it's your turn: B+ -- Ross
Wolinsky

PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION: If the cubicle is the most depressing
thing to have ever happened in your post-college life, the cubicle with
the half-height "walls" is the reason you consider suicide every night.
You never know who could be coming up behind you, innocently walking back
from the bathroom, and notice that the bright colors and pictures on your
computer couldn't possibly be work. Flashing pictures, moving images,
and large fonts don't help either. This is where the Printer-Friendly
Version comes in handy. It makes whatever non-work thing you are reading
look the way printers like them: boring. Boring is what makes the boss
keep walking without unexpectedly coming into the cube ostensibly just
to pop in and see what you are working on, but really to plant seeds of
sheer terror and paranoia in your head, seeds which will grow into every
facet of your life. Never again will a computer feel safe. This is why
all websites should have Printer-Friendly Versions. It would make us all
a little more at ease in our cubes, staring at something that very well
could be work. I'm talking to you, Black Table. B+ -- Molly

MINUTE MAIDS ALL IN A ROW: We aren't any busier or harried than
our parents or even Little House on the Prairie, for that matter.
Our problem is the time it takes to wade through all of the choices we
have. Send someone to the store for orange juice. Just orange juice. If
you want to help them, specify Minute Maid. It will cut the search in
half. But wait. Do you want pulp, some pulp, tons of pulp? Do you want
extra calcium, light (from skinny oranges?), low acid, vitamin enriched,
immunity enhancing (really!)? Do you want it from the grovestand or home
style? Do you want orange juice for high mileage, extra shine and body
or when the right moment comes? Remember when orange juice was just what
you could squeeze out of an orange? To really mess with your shopper,
tell them you want potato chips, too. They have an ENTIRE aisle all to
themselves. Having too many choices? Beats having none, I suppose. A
-- Roy Felipe

SAYING GOODBYE: She's the co-worker from hell -- grouchy EVERY
SINGLE DAY, the sort of person that if you handed her a million bucks
would complain about the taxes she was going to need to pay. She makes
more money than anyone else in the department and complains about her
salary to us. If we need to drive to an offsite meeting, she's the first
to ask for a ride, and the only one who never, ever pitches in for gas
or parking. Frown at her and she'll complain to the boss. Smile at her
and she'll load your desk with her work. Her idea of "good morning" is
to stomp into the office complaining about the traffic, the weather, the
air conditioning, her kids or her lack of time to eat breakfast. She announced
yesterday that she's giving her notice and heading to a new company to
make other people's lives hell. We feel sorry for the unwary strangers
at the 40-employee, family-owned company to which she's moving, but we're
all so happy she's leaving that we'll be taking her out to lunch, where
she'll doubtless complain the whole time about her entree, the table and
the service. Losing the cubicle demon? B -- SR

CELEBRETARDATION: It's not every day that you urinate with an
indie rock star, so I was rightfully surprised/excited (in a totally non-sexual
way, Ira) when I found myself standing next to Ira Kaplan (of Yo La Tengo)
in a movie theater bathroom. I wanted to say something, but decided that
might be invasive. I followed him up the hall toward the lobby, trying
with each step to think of what to say that wouldn't seem stalkerish.
Georgia (Hubley, Yo La Tengo's drummer and Ira's wife) was waiting for
him in the lobby. "Excuse me," I said with a child's fumbling eagerness.
"I just want to say that I'm a big fan, and I love you guys." 'I love
you'?? Did I think we'd all go back to Hoboken for tea in their living
room? And the people standing around us were noticeably intrigued. It
wasn't at all unlike the day I gave John Turturro the familiar, acknowledging
smile and head nod as he and his son made their way to the back of the
line at a screening in Brooklyn. As if I expected him to stop and chat.
I won't even go into the Matthew Broderick incident, except to say that
I'm sure he heard me stammering into my phone that I was watching him
exit a cab. I've adjusted somewhat to the proximity of fame after four
years in New York. But I still can't adhere to the unspoken rule that
celebrities get to lose themselves in the anonymity of the throng. Peeing
with Yo La Tengo: A. Seeing Paul McCartney and his wife taking
the toddler for a stroll: A+. Acting like a babbling idiot every
time a famous person walks by ("We just saw a Beatle!" my coworker screamed.),
a.k.a. Celebretardation: D. --Seth
Wharton

LEARNING YOUR CHILDHOOD CRUSH STARS IN PORN: Perhaps I am overly
sentimental, but I always enjoy hearing from or about people from my childhood.
Learning of the current careers, relationships, victories and defeats
of those who have crossed my path at some point always puts me in a contemplative
mood about where I have trod and where it is I am heading. However, learning
that the girl I had a mild, pre-pubescent crush on in second grade is
now a rising star within the pornography industry did not quite illicit
this reaction. At first I did not believe the allegations, dismissing
them as vicious rumors from jealous ex-boyfriends or rivals. However,
the rumors proved true when I was presented with a copy of Cum Drippers
8 featuring the beautiful angel of my past's face smeared with semen
on the cover. It certainly has made me contemplative - the fact that the
chest I saw one April afternoon while playing "doctor" is now being ejaculated
on at this very moment has a way of gripping my mind at inopportune moments.
Watching your symbol of childhood innocence being double penetrated and
"creampied": D. Adding some sentimentality to your porn collection:
C-. --Jake
Eyers